It is some years ago now that wine drinking was almost unknown. Plenty of beer but little wine. It was even less usual for women to be seen drinking at all. Certainly in pubs, women were only allowed in well hidden ‘Ladies lounges’ or ‘Lady Parlours’ as they were sometimes called. They would coyly sip a sherry or a pony of shandy. It was also unheard of that women would frequent public toilets, or at least that’s what the general impression was when sauntering around parks, city streets, or railway stations.

I remember, as a curious youth I would try and observe women drinking alcohol from outside the street looking into those mysterious Ladies Lounges. Indeed, in Sydney’s Oxford Street, there was one wine bar. I have forgotten its name. Believe it or not, both men and women could be seen to drink there together. It was the infamous group called ‘The Sydney Push ‘.It was decades before its time and breaking all the boundaries.

There was drinking, dalliance and cavorting of all sexes and in the same room.  Lorenzini’s Wine Bar and Repin’s Coffee Shop were places of very early mixed and same sex meetings of a variety of painters, writers, criminals, poets and prostitutes; however, of greatest notoriety, was the Royal George Hotel in Sussex Street. Clive James, Germaine Greer, Frank Moorehouse and many luminaries or not so illuminating of the time, used to do the rounds of all the ‘in’ places.

Of course, that was during the period that one had to fork out a penny to go to a public toilet. Those toilet doors were heavy and made from solid wood  with fortified hinges that were spring loaded ensuring they would always clap shut. No free rides, no matter how big the urgency.  The penny would be put into a large shiny contraption bolted on the door. It had a kind of knob that you would have to turn in order for the penny to drop and to release the locking mechanism. I dare say ‘, the penny has dropped’ might originate from those toilet doors. Of course, that famous poem; HERE I SIT, BROKEN HEARTED, spent a penny and only farted, must have come from that period of paid bowel and/or bladder relief as well.

Those conveniences for us blokes were called ‘Men’s Toilet.’ It wasn’t so for women. Indeed, one of the most baffling and curious differences from our previous life in Europe and here, was the segregation of the sexes in public places such as hotels, at social events and toilets. There were apparently no women toilets in Australia, only ‘Powder rooms’, ‘Rest rooms, or even ‘Ladies reserves’  ,of course they were euphemisms for women toilets.  Why the name ‘toilet’ was alright for men but considered offensive or unpleasant for women remains shrouded in a historical cloud. Those ‘Ladies Reserves’ were mainly in parks such as The Domain of Sydney. There used to be some kind of wire netting fence around those establishments, indicating some kind of ‘reserve’. What sort of stigma was attached to women using toilets?

 I imagined a whole army of women furiously powdering themselves and eating sandwiches afterwards in the ‘rest room’.  The last thing, the society of that time would consider and contemplate, was the very idea of women doing what men did, use toilets. That is all gone now and even slowly being replaced with unisex toilets. Where will it all end?

Our manner of wine consumption has changed beyond recognition. Pubs and hotels are now vying for all sexes as never before. No stigma for a woman to enter and ask for a gin and tonic. Our wine production is also of world class. Some years ago Hardy’s opening up and exported their wine technology and expertise to France was the cherry on the cake. Millions are now clamouring for Jacob’s Creek worldwide. Mention Australia overseas, and most likely you will get a smile and ‘ah your wine’ as a handy entry in animated conversation. During the seventies it was ‘Cold Duck and Barossa Pearl ‘with Port and Sherry next, sold in glass flagons, soon after replaced by those handy bladders in carton boxes, a worldwide first. The most staggering change has been the acceptance of screw tops on wine bottles, while doing away with the traditional cork. It’s not corkage that gets charged in restaurants, it’s ‘screwage.’

Sophistication at its best.